Newsletter - 2024-07-27

La Vache Qui Rit [trade : cheese : O/S - France] "Olympic Sports" stickers (1988) 12/19 

Today in 1940, this little long eared chap, Bugs Bunny was born, or rather first appeared under the name of Bugs Bunny, because he had been on screen before, but on those occasions his character was not only un-named, but considered a hare - in fact, his 1940 debut was in a short Tex Avery cartoon called "A Wild Hare". 

He caught on quick, perhaps because there were many things to like about him, he is flippant, funny, and often quite cheeky, and he walks on his hind legs like a human, crossing the boundaries between the species. He also talks (with a Brooklyn accent). Of all the cartoon characters around the world, he has appeared in the most films of any - not counting his television, comic, and internet appearances. And according to the Trading Card Database / Bugs Bunny he appears on over three hundred and fifty cards. Though I am not sure I agree that the first of these was in 1974... so over to you to find an earlier one.

Anyway, it is no wonder that Warner Brothers have him as their official mascot - nor that he has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

So to those cards. His first set appears to be "Happy Birthday Bugs", which was issued in 1990 to mark his, wait for it, fiftieth birthday ! This was a set of 216 cards but it looks like under half of that featured his character.

Another set  or three, which seems to have a cult following is Upper Deck`s "Comic Ball". These are ostensibly baseball cards, but with a difference, as the actual players are accompanied on many of the cards by cartoon characters. I think this is a set which will be very sought after in years to come, so if you get one, wrap it and put it away safely. 

This year, at the age of eighty-four we are delighted to report that he is still going strong - and entertaining a whole new generation of cartoon fans. And long may that last

Changechecker [trade : coins : UK] "Trading Cards" (2016) Un/??

Jeremy Fisher, Tabitha Twitchit, and little Peter Rabbit - they would not exist if it were not for Helen Beatrix Potter, who was born today in 1866. 

Her family came from Manchester, but she was born in London, where her father had trained as a Barrister and settled down. He did not make his money in that way though, being a bit of a wizard at predicting the rise and fall of the stock market. Her parents were also artists though, and her father had an interest in photography. Both parents were also interested in nature, and  encouraging of the fact that children like to have pets. 

They summered in Scotland, near the river Tay, and then, when Beatrix was sixteen, they started going instead to the Lake District, especially the area around Lake Windermere. It was here that she met the Vicar of Wray, who would later become the secretary of a new countryside organisation called The National Trust. She found him, and his tales of the rural ways, completely fascinating, and though she had always kept a journal, she started to become more scientific in what she wrote. 

It was a letter, written in September 1893, that she first wrote, to a friend, about four little rabbits, one of whom was Peter. This became the rough outline of her first book, published in October 1902 as "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" - and it was followed the next year by two books "The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin" and "The Tailor of Gloucester", both of which had also started life as letters, to friends, and been subsequently enlarged. 

In 1905 she wanted to became engaged, but her parents objected, for her suitor was of lower class. A month later he was dead, of pernicious anaemia. It appears that she had already used some of the money from her books and a family inheritance to buy a property in the Lake District where the couple were to live. Now it became a place to escape her family, who had so objected to her future. This was Hill Top Farm near Sawrey. She also started to buy more land, using a solicitor called William Heelis. They married in 1912. She continued to write, and become a part of the local village and also to buy land. The couple were married for thirty years until she died in 1943. On her death it was revealed that she had left almost all her land to the National Trust - and that remaining, to be occupied and used by her husband, was also theirs when he died. Sadly that was only two years later. 

Now this card is not strictly cartophilic, though they are given away, and swapped through facebook, but they do turn up a lot in mixed boxes of cards. There are also "Golden" cards to find. They started being issued in 2013, and the company is an official distributor for the Royal Mint. You start by buying a kit, which brings you an album with cards for each of the commemorative 50p and £2 coins that are in current circulation, plus a list of all the coins of those denominations that have been issued before that time. The cards tell you the date and country of issue, and excitingly the name of the artist who designed the front and back picture. It also tells you how many of those coins were made so that you can spot immediately whether the coin in your hand has a possibility of being more valuable. They do not list current value, wisely, as this changes very frequently. 

Anyway, the next time you find one of these in your odds box, you will know what it is !

Anglo Confectionery Ltd [trade : confectionery : UK - Halifax] "Space" (1967) 36/66 - ANG-320 : ANF-5

Onwards, and upwards, because today in 1958 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration - or N.A.S.A. - was created. The first interesting fact is that they are not a government agency, they are independent, so, as such, they are responsible only for the civil space programme, which is how they can use civilians, not military personnel. It was also helpful, because it did not immediately suggest that the spacecraft were anything to do with planned invasions of other countries.

Before N.A.S.A. there was another body, called N.A.C.A, which was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, this was also a civilian operation, but it had been started in 1915, and as the name suggests was primarily for aviation, not inter-planetary travel. There was another reason why it was decided to change, though, and that was because they had long supported, and been involved with, the armed forces, latterly with experiments in guided missiles and rockets. These, once Sputnik had been launched by the Russians, were, at first, moved over to the Navy, and to a new unit, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, who launched the first ever satellite, Explorer 1, in February 1958. 

Perhaps fearful that the growing interest in space would come to be tainted by the military usage, it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in July of that year, and split the research into military and civilian bodies, paving the way for the first civilian space programme, in October 1958.

These cards were issued almost a decade after N.A.S.A. had been created. Some of the prophecies on them did not come true, and some did, most spectacularly their belief that Pluto could not be as far as the solar system went, and that there may be other even more distant worlds still undiscovered in the depths of space - though the discovery of those came fifty years after the cards were released.

Now some of these cards credit N.A.S.A, but I have scanned one which does not. Never mind, the title will suffice as a link. No time to hunt for longer! 

This set is first described in our original British Trade Index part two, as :

SPACE. Lg. 89 x 64. Nd. (66) ... ANF-5

It`s not too dissimilar in our updated version, being : 

SPACE. 1967. 89 x 64. Nd. (66) ... ANG-320

A. & B. C. [Trade : bubble gum : UK] "Car Stamp Albums" (1971) Un/114 - AAB-100 : HA-2 : ABF-42.5 :

Took ages to find anything to celebrate on this day, then I found that it was the tenth anniversary of the Festival of the Unexceptional, at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire.

This is basically a celebration of the standard cars that the general public drove between 1969 and 1999, nothing souped up, or altered to make them sportier, or faster, just the general runabout that took us to school and to work.

It is sold out now, but mark the date in your diary for next year. There is also a competition element, full details of which appear on the website. 

So here we have the Ford Cortina, in the Estate version. These were announced in February 1967, which is a bit outside the age range of the concours, but the Cortina was the best selling British car of the 1970s, so if you have a later one you are in with a shot. There were two engine sizes, the 1300 DeLuxe (showing here) and the 1500 Super Model, though you could pay to upgrade the DeLuxe and get a bigger engine. However the front seats only reclined if you got the Super Model. Oh the choices ! 

Actually the first ever non-estate Cortina was launched in 1962, and it has been designed by the same designer as the ill fated American Ford Edsel - who, reputedly, had been sent to England as a punishment. Now despite the car being launched in 1962 the name comes from 1956, when Cortina D`Ampezzo hosted the Winter Olympics. It also seems odd that their advertising used several Cortinas tackling the Cortina Olympic bobsled course, when there had been the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley USA in between, and Ford, after all, was an American company. 

By the way if you are a Ford Cortina fan, and a cartophilst, you will undoubtedly already possess  the two sets issued by Golden Era - the 2007 "Cortina Mk.1 1962-1966" and the 2002 "Ford Cortina Story 1962-1982". If not, they are not that expensive, and Christmas fast approaches ! 

This set appears in our original British Trade Index part three as :

Car Stamp Albums. Four-page folders, 90 x 63, inscribed "Book 1" to "Book 21". Each with space for five adhesive motor car stamps, issued in anonymous sheets of six perforated stamps, in wrapper inscribed "A. & B.C. Car Stamps Bubble Gum. ... ABF-42.5

Thanks, at this point, to Mr. Sayle, for working out the complex mathematical task of adding up all these numbers to make the total in the set. Though now I have found time to retrieve my updated British Trade Index, the text in there reads : 

CAR STAMPS. 1971. 48 x 37. Adhesive. Unnd. (114). In perforated sheets of six, in wrapper with "A. & B.C.Car Stamps Bubble Gum". Anonymous outside special 8-page folder albums inscribed "Book 1" to "Book 21", each with make of car, and spaces for 5-6 stamps. See HA-2 ... AAB-100

There is something else that is not mentioned in either of these books, because if you look at these stamps on internet auction sites you will see that the sheets obviously had a border, but that some collectors, like the previous owner of this one, chose to trim the stamps closer to the edge and remove the blank margin. Our stamp was at the top of the sheet, hence the non-perforated top, but looking online showed me that actually it was at the corner, and once did have a thick blank border to the right hand side. 

Chocolat Pupier [trade : chocolate : O/S - France] "L`Europe" (1930) Un/252

Going a long way back now, right to 1588 and the Spanish Armada. However though this was not the date they sailed, this was a turning point, in more ways than one. 

We called it the Armada, just as the Spanish called our Navy an Armada, because Navy in Spanish translates to Armada. It does not mean superior force, or even "Invincible" as this card says. Actually the Spanish called it "Grande y Felicisma Armada" - or "Great and Lucky Navy", which is what they hoped it would be, and it left Lisbon in May 1588, under the command of the 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, who had been appointed by King Philip II of Spain despite the fact that the Duke had no prior Naval experience, and very little military experience either. However he was related to Ferdinand II of Aragon, being his great-great grandson, and he was also a very staunch Catholic. 

He was also given a plan - to sail up the English Channel, as a forbidding force of ships to demonstrate their power, but not to attack, just to sail past. Then he would meet up with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, and the two of them would sail back with even more ships, and invade Britain. When they had done that, they were to overthrow the Queen, and declare the land to be Spanish, at the same time making the official religion Catholic.  There were a few other things too but they would be tackled later. 

The plan did not take into account that the English fleet were based in Plymouth, almost at the start of the English Channel, nor that the Spanish galleons were showy, but larger and not as speedy as the British ships, who lay in wait and allowed the Spanish ones to come ever closer. 

As the sun rose on the 31st of July, the English fleet went into action and attacked the Spanish fleet just outside Plymouth, coming at them from above and below. The Spanish were renowned as close combat fighters, but the British had superior weapons with better aim, which did not allow the Spanish to get close enough to fight from ship to ship.

If the 7th Duke had listened to his crew he might have made it, for they advised him to redirect and moor up in the Isle of Wight. Instead he pressed ahead, with the British ships in hot pursuit, and though most of the ships reached as far as Calais they were then attacked under cover of darkness and scattered. 

I am pretty sure that there are lots of cards featuring the Armada but all I have come up with so far is R. & J. Hill`s "Medals and Decorations" card 46/68 - John Player`s (etc) "Arms and Armour" card 33/50 - and Wills "Historic Events" card 27/50. The Hill card is a very good one to include, because it tells us that this medal was the first ever medal awarded by a monarch to men at war. 

These little stamps were to be stuck in an album, nine per page, and it looks like each page was a different country. England was page 4, as it says on the card. The page of cards are the Royal Standard, King George V against Tower Bridge, a map of the United Kingdom, the Houses of Parliament, William the Conqueror, this card of the Spanish Armada, Cromwell, the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Waterloo. The facing page is "Angleterre-Irlande". Only Germany merits a two page spread. 

Ogden`s [tobacco : UK - London & Liverpool] "General Interest" Tabs Series B (1902) 124/200 - O/90 [RB.15/90]

Another awkward one, I had the date but not the card, but then I asked about and got this and it actually says that London Bridge "was opened for traffic in 1831" - though not that this event happened today.

The problem was that there are plenty of cards of London`s bridges, but what is now thought of as London Bridge is the one by the Houses of Parliament, and that is really Westminster Bridge. 

At first, and I mean when the Romans arrived, Londinium Bridge was just an impermanent structure that forded the mighty Thamesis, though the bridge was upgraded in about 50 A.D. by sinking boats into the soil and fixing a roadway across the top of them.

The first real London Bridge was the one with all the shops and housing pressed together along it, in danger of toppling backwards into the water, which Medieval Londoners fought across in their carts, or walked across on foot.That remained, despite fires, and accidents, albeit growing more dilapidated and dangerous, until our bridge, showing here, came along - but not until the nineteenth century. 

The first stirrings of a new bridge came in 1799, when a competition was announced to design a new bridge on that site. This must have caused much panic through the remaining occupants, and even more so when they saw the designs coming in. One of these was by Thomas Telford, whose bridge was fairly revolutionary, a single arch, in iron, but it lost out through needing more space for access and approach than was given, especially at the Southwark end which was already pretty overcrowded. The winning design was by John Rennie which was built a hundred feet away from the original site, but sloped and rose more gently, because the weight was spread over five arches not one. it was also a more traditional material, granite. 

The work began to clear and prepare the site in 1824 and in June 1825 the foundation stone was cemented into place. It took until 1831 to actually be ready to travel across and then the old bridge was demolished - it had been in use all that time. The delay was caused by building the access and approach roads, something not helped by the fact that they were in a different place. Perhaps if the old bridge had been demolished first this would have been less trouble, and cost. It ended up costing two and a half million pounds (in their money, not adjusted to today`s rates)

Today, in 1831, saw the official opening took place, attended by King William IV and his Queen Adelaide, who ate a lavish banquet in a pavilion which was set up on the bridge. A lasting memorial can be found in the fact that one of the approach roads is called King William Street. It was an amazingly popular crossing, and that was its undoing. First it was insufficient for the amount of traffic that wanted to travel over it, so it was widened. However this changed the dynamics and the bridge started to sink. It was slow, but steady, and so a new bridge had to be built. 

That started construction in 1967, slightly away from our bridge, and it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in March 1973. It is slightly more utilitarian, but stronger, as it is a box construction made of steel girders and concrete. 

To our card chat and a quick summary of the Tabs issues. These were issued between 1900 and 1903, and "Tabs" was the brand name. The fronts were printed by letterpress in black and white, and they are very similar to those issued with the "Guinea Gold" brand, though they are well marked so it is easy enough to tell the difference for the most part. The "B" Series was described in our original Ogden reference book as : 

90. 200. B Series. Numbered on backs. Backs inscribed "Packets of Ogden`s Tab Cigarettes contain photos of General Interest", with descriptive text, and "This series contains 200 Photographs". Duplicated numbers :-
Nos. 35-37. Mr. Arthur Roberts. All three numbers are found with three different portraits  ; (a) white trousers (b) Pipe in mouth (c) Plume in hat
Nos. 163 and 173. Mdlle. Anna Held. Both numbers are found with two different portraits : (a) With large hat (b) No hat, hair over shoulders
Nos. 166 and 174. Mdlle. Paulette Filliaux. Both numbers are found with two different portraits : (a) Facing front, flowers at waist (b) Back view, basket in arms

Joseph Jackson [trade : hair restorer : O/S - Paris, France] "Royal Windsor" advertising card - trains (1890?) 1/1

From above the water to below the ground, for we close with today in 1870, when the first Tube Railway was opened in London.

Now we have cheated a bit because this card shows the Paris Metro, and also the "tube railway" that we are referring to is not the Metro-like Underground Railway which you are thinking of. Instead, ours was an actual sealed tube, six feet in diameter, that opened only at the start and the finish, with no stations, or even a way out, between. Definitely not my idea of a fun time.

It ran beneath the River Thames in London, to where its passengers, and what very brave ones they must have been, descended in steam operated lifts, and got aboard a rather cramped and perhaps not even illuminated twelve seat carriage, which was pulled along by a cable, powered by a steam engine. 

It all started, as usual, with complaints about the ever growing traffic in the city. The tube was then mooted as an alternative, and even resulted in the setting up of the The City Terminus Company, with plans to extend to other areas if demand required such. There was even a plan for a larger railway tube from Farringdon to King`s Cross, but the maker could not get any of the railway companies to come aboard, as it were.

However, two years later, the Metropolitan Railway applied to build their own Underground Line, from Paddington to Kings Cross, using a very similar system. This did not happen, for many reasons, but it was decided to convert the idea of having a sealed tube into one with openings, and places to embark and disembark, which is really the beginning of today`s tube. 

Going back to our tube, work commenced in February 1869 and it opened on August the 2nd, 1870. Unfortunately, the people who had been so keen to travel were only there at the very start, and the costs of the building of the tunnel and the mechanism were pretty huge, not to mention the running costs. So in December 1870, just a few months after their opening, they were either faced with closure or change. Then they had a brainwave. They removed the railway and everything to do with it, as well as the lifts, fitted stairs, then allowed people to walk through the tunnel. This was very popular, and a great novelty, until 1894 when a new novelty, Tower Bridge, opened just a few hundred yards downstream. 

After that the tunnel`s days were numbered, and it closed in 1898.